1
2 ***********************************************************
3 * EasyCAP USB 2.0 Video Adapter with Audio, Model DC60 *
4 * and *
5 * EasyCAP002 4-Channel USB 2.0 DVR *
6 ***********************************************************
7 Mike Thomas <rmthomas@sciolus.org>
8
9
10
11SUPPORTED HARDWARE
12------------------
13
14This driver is intended for use with hardware having USB ID 05e1:0408.
15Two kinds of EasyCAP have this USB ID, namely:
16
17 * EasyCAP USB 2.0 Video Adapter with Audio, Model DC60,
18 having input cables labelled CVBS, S-VIDEO, AUDIO(L), AUDIO(R)
19
20 * EasyCAP002 4-Channel USB 2.0 DVR, having input cables labelled
21 1, 2, 3, 4 and an unlabelled input cable for a microphone.
22
23
24BUILD OPTIONS AND DEPENDENCIES
25------------------------------
26
27Unless EASYCAP_DEBUG is defined during compilation it will not be possible
28to select a debug level at the time of module installation.
29
30
31KNOWN RUNTIME ISSUES
32--------------------
33
34(1) Intentionally, this driver will not stream material which is unambiguously
35identified by the hardware as copy-protected. Normal video output will be
36present for about a minute but will then freeze when this situation arises.
37
38(2) The controls for luminance, contrast, saturation, hue and volume may not
39always work properly.
40
41(3) Reduced-resolution S-Video seems to suffer from moire artefacts.
42
43
44INPUT NUMBERING
45---------------
46
47For the EasyCAP with S-VIDEO input cable the driver regards a request for
48inputs numbered 0 or 1 as referring to CVBS and a request for input
49numbered 5 as referring to S-VIDEO.
50
51For the EasyCAP with four CVBS inputs the driver expects to be asked for
52any one of inputs numbered 1,2,3,4. If input 0 is asked for, it is
53interpreted as input 1.
54
55
56MODULE PARAMETERS
57-----------------
58
59Three module parameters are defined:
60
61debug the easycap module is configured at diagnostic level n (0 to 9)
62gain audio gain level n (0 to 31, default is 16)
63bars whether to display testcard bars when incoming video signal is lost
64 0 => no, 1 => yes (default)
65
66
67SUPPORTED TV STANDARDS AND RESOLUTIONS
68--------------------------------------
69
70The following TV standards are natively supported by the hardware and are
71usable as (for example) the "norm=" parameter in the mplayer command:
72
73 PAL_BGHIN, NTSC_N_443,
74 PAL_Nc, NTSC_N,
75 SECAM, NTSC_M, NTSC_M_JP,
76 PAL_60, NTSC_443,
77 PAL_M.
78
79In addition, the driver offers "custom" pseudo-standards with a framerate
80which is 20% of the usual framerate. These pseudo-standards are named:
81
82 PAL_BGHIN_SLOW, NTSC_N_443_SLOW,
83 PAL_Nc_SLOW, NTSC_N_SLOW,
84 SECAM_SLOW, NTSC_M_SLOW, NTSC_M_JP_SLOW,
85 PAL_60_SLOW, NTSC_443_SLOW,
86 PAL_M_SLOW.
87
88
89The available picture sizes are:
90
91 at 25 frames per second: 720x576, 704x576, 640x480, 360x288, 320x240;
92 at 30 frames per second: 720x480, 640x480, 360x240, 320x240.
93
94
95WHAT'S TESTED AND WHAT'S NOT
96----------------------------
97
98This driver is known to work with mplayer, mencoder, tvtime, zoneminder,
99xawtv, gstreamer and sufficiently recent versions of vlc. An interface
100to ffmpeg is implemented, but serious audio-video synchronization problems
101remain.
102
103The driver is designed to support all the TV standards accepted by the
104hardware, but as yet it has actually been tested on only a few of these.
105
106I have been unable to test and calibrate the S-video input myself because I
107do not possess any equipment with S-video output.
108
109
110UDEV RULES
111----------
112
113In order that the special files /dev/easycap0 and /dev/easysnd1 are created
114with conveniently relaxed permissions when the EasyCAP is plugged in, a file
115is preferably to be provided in directory /etc/udev/rules.d with content:
116
117ACTION!="add|change", GOTO="easycap_rules_end"
118ATTRS{idVendor}=="05e1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0408", \
119 MODE="0666", OWNER="root", GROUP="root"
120LABEL="easycap_rules_end"
121
122
123MODPROBE CONFIGURATION
124----------------------
125
126The easycap module is in competition with the module snd-usb-audio for the
127EasyCAP's audio channel, and its installation can be aided by providing a
128file in directory /etc/modprobe.d with content:
129
130options easycap gain=16 bars=1
131install easycap /sbin/rmmod snd-usb-audio; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install easycap
132
133
134ACKNOWLEGEMENTS AND REFERENCES
135------------------------------
136This driver makes use of information contained in the Syntek Semicon DC-1125
137Driver, presently maintained at http://sourceforge.net/projects/syntekdriver/
138by Nicolas Vivien. Particularly useful has been a patch to the latter driver
139provided by Ivor Hewitt in January 2009. The NTSC implementation is taken
140from the work of Ben Trask.
141
142